The Opelousas courier., 1887-04-23
A Strange Story.

Speaking of superstition reminds me OF
a story which a thoroughly truthful friend
of mine tells, though | don't know why /
should think of it in connection with SUI
perstition, for | believe it is only the>op-
Grafton of a natural law which we do not
yet understand. Says my friend: Il was
a little boy of about~ten years when the
war broke out. My elder brother and my
cousin, who had lived in our family for
many years and was as much like a brother
as if he were one, enlisted and went to
the front. Before the battle of 1uka, [
think it was, the papers told of the pros
pect of a battle, but gave no idea of when
it would be fought. One day | was play
ing in our sitting-room at home and | no.
ticed that my mother was very miserable.
She would walk the floor for awhile and
then stand and look vacantly out at the
window. Several times she sat down and
quietly wept. Presently she said: MY
God, they must not go there No n
was in the room with S and not a
word had been spoken for a long time.
Her manner frightened me, | remember,
and I asked her what was the matter.
oLdlCI1IHS HIG " LCi Dltuot Div SNocN WI
a long time like a statue, vouchsafing me
no further information than that my
brother and cousin were in great danger
and would probably be killed. | sup
posed she knew supposed my mother
knew everything-so without asking how
she knew |, too, fell to crying; and there
we stood close to each other and wept as
if we already had seen the mangled
bodies of our loved ones. For more than
an hour, | think, we continued to mourn,
when, as | was lying on the sofa at one
end of the room and she was sitting by a
window at the other, she all at once ut
tered a joyful 'Ah!' and said in almost
hysterical excitement: They are safe;
they are all right now BY this time /
had gathered my wits enough to wonder
and to ask how she knew, and she told
she didn't know how she knew, but
something told her.
THE next letter that came from the
boys told of the battle and related this
incident: Company A, cavalry, of the
Thirty-sixth Illinois Infantry Regiment
company of which my brother and
cousin were members-had been sent in
advance of the. army to reconnoiter a road
running through a forest with dense I'M
derbrush. The company passed down
the road and entered the woods through
which they went a considerable distance.
Captain Albert jerks, | believe
it was, made the discovery that the I'M
1erbrush on both sides of the road was
alive with Confederates. With great
presence of wind he halted his men, or
'ather stopped them in an unconventional
way, and said to them in a loud tone:
"'Well, boys, this road is all clear; I
guess our army cal, go through all right.
Anyway, We'll go Es~k and report it all
Then in a lower tone he cautioned
lis men not to look to the right or left,
,ut go back quietly as they had come.
The upshot of it was that the Confed-
rates, thinking they would catch the
whole U6ion army in their ambush, Law
still and let the little company
70 back unmolested.
Now, continues my friend, ''as nearly
$ we could get ut the facts, it was when
he company was going into those woods
hat my mother said they must not go
here, and it was when they halted and
urned about that she said they were
There is a well known theory that there
5 some sort of occult connection between
ertaln minds, no matter what nor how
1uch distance may intervene between
hem, but this hardly explains my friends
ase, for his mother seemed to know of
ne special danger in which "the DO VS."
Tere placed, while ''the boys" themselves
eemed to be ignorant of it. At any rate,
is a tough nut to crack, and l leave it
} the metaphysicians with the assurance
nat believe all its essential points to be
nquestionably true hicago News.